1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pick-up apparatus, a pick-up method, and a storage medium that records a pick-up method program, which are suitable for a digital still camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, soft-focus photography is used as one of photographic techniques. With the soft-focus photography, in, e.g., a portrait, a person is expressed sharply, and things around him are expressed softly. For silver halide cameras, filters and photographing lenses dedicated to soft-focus photography are prepared. Anyone who uses such a filter or lens can do soft-focus photography. If there is no dedicated filter or photographing lens, Vaseline or the like may be applied to the surface of a photographing lens (or a filter).
However, if soft-focus imaging is to be done using a digital still camera, the following problems are posed. Many digital still cameras cannot exchange the photographing lens and be mounted a filter except high-class models. To always carry a dedicated filter independently of whether it will be used is unsuitable for a digital still camera that is advantageous in its compact and lightweight body, portability, and ease of handling. In addition, the objective lens of a digital still camera generally has a small diameter. For this reason, it is difficult to obtain a satisfactory soft-focus imaging effect by applying Vaseline or the like to the surface of the objective lens.